


Norwegian Wood

by hafren



Category: Blake's 7
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2009-11-24
Updated: 2009-11-24
Packaged: 2017-10-03 16:15:09
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,405
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19982
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hafren/pseuds/hafren
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Avon and Tarrant negotiate with potential allies, and each other</p>
            </blockquote>





	Norwegian Wood

**Author's Note:**

> I wrote this in response to a challenge which wanted a story with Avon/Tarrant (which I flat don't credit unless both are drunk), a log cabin, yoga and vegetarian sushi. But also because I love using Beatles titles

"Vila? Stay awake up there. I mean it. I want to be able to get out of here as soon as something goes wrong."

"Yeah, no problem." Vila's voice over the comlink sounded bored. "Have you met them yet?"

"Only to say hello. There's a strategist they want at the meeting, who can't get here till tomorrow; they won't talk till then. Or so they say."

"What's it like down there anyway?"

"You wouldn't like it. Sea one side and a damn great pine forest on the other. Don't forget, keep monitoring anything they send out." Avon closed the link and went over to the big picture window of the cabin's living room. He stared out at the little circle of log cabins and the darkness of the forest beyond, now and then sipping red wine from the glass in his hand.

Tarrant looked up from the huge wooden rocking-chair in which he was lounging, his long limbs curving exactly with its contours. "Why doesn't Vila like trees?"

"Because there might be gunmen hiding behind them. His instincts are very sound that way."

"You really don't trust these people, do you? So why bother coming?"

"We need allies." Avon's voice sounded tired. He sat down at the white-pine table and leaned his head on his hands. "As long as there's a chance their overtures might be genuine, we can hardly afford not to check them out. We shall see tomorrow. But they probably want to sell us. Most people do."

"Well," Tarrant said practically, uncurling from the chair in a fluid, easy movement, "we might as well enjoy their hospitality." There was food laid out on the table; he chose something small, green and fiddly and munched it. "These are nice, you know," he said indistinctly, "better than Xenon concentrates."

Avon eyed them with distaste. "Not much." He picked up a chunk of cold meat and tore into it. Tarrant grimaced.

"God, you're an unreconstructed carnivore, aren't you? I'm sure that stuff isn't healthy."

"Probably not. What difference does it make? Eat as healthily as you like, take all that exercise it exhausts me to look at, treat your body like a temple; you'll still die sooner or later. As will we all."

The word "like" hung in the air. Like Anna, like Cally, like Blake... Tarrant glanced over at him. There was something defeatist about him these days, for all he kept chasing new allies, new weapons, new strategies. He looked older, heavier. He ate little, on Xenon or anywhere, but what he ate was generally the wrong stuff. The drinking was new for him, too.

"Well," Tarrant said lightly, "as long as this particular temple's still standing, I might as well look after it. I'm going for a walk on the beach." He bent down to take his boots off.

Avon chewed the meat, washing red wine around its fibres, and looked down at the bowed head with its tendrils of hair curling around the nape of a pale neck. "Even as delicious meat is to the taste,  
So was his neck in touching ...." - the ancient words swirled around his head with the wine. When Tarrant was gone, the room seemed very quiet; the forest outside seemed to close in on the window. He refilled the glass and went into the bedroom, though by the time he got there, he'd forgotten what he came to look for.

The window in this room was smaller. He looked out at the grassy dunes and the sea beyond. Tarrant was strolling at the tide's edge, letting the waves lap his bare feet. His thin white shirt was almost transparent in the strong light and his trousers, wet almost to the knees, clung to his long legs. He looked very young. Avon felt an ache that could have been memory, or envy, or protectiveness or just the effect of alcohol. He turned and went back to the other room.

Quite suddenly, the sky darkened. Next moment, he heard the rain drumming fiercely on the roof, rattling the window. The outside world had disappeared behind a sheet of grey.

The door burst open and Tarrant almost fell in, laughing and breathless. He was soaked, his thin clothes moulded to the skin beneath. Avon knelt by the log fire, trying to find a switch to start it with. "How the hell does this work?"

Tarrant moved him aside, dripping all over him. "Wood fire. Done it in survival class." He took the half-charred logs off and scattered paper and wood chips from the box of kindling to make a base, then put the logs back. Then he slid the firebox out, full of white ash, and said, "Empty that somewhere". Avon opened the door a crack and threw out the ash. The wind blew some of it back on him; when he closed the door his dark hair was misted with grey.

The fire was flickering. Tarrant watched it carefully. "It'll get going soon."

"Primitive." Avon went through to the bathroom and came back with a fleecy robe. He tossed it to Tarrant. "Never mind that; get those things off before you develop pneumonia. I'll watch the fire."

He did, staring into it, seeing the flames leap and grow, while next to him, just visible out of the corner of his eye, a lithe young body glinted for a few moments in the firelight before being enveloped in fleece. I shouldn't drink, Avon thought; I really shouldn't. He had never had a head for it, which was why he'd left it alone, knowing how soon it could cloud his thought. But lately, clouds had been somewhat welcome.

Tarrant lay on the hearthrug in front of the blaze, thawing out. The room was getting dark. Avon looked, in vain again, for switches. He stared in disbelief at the oil lamp and settled for candles. They were all over the place, nothing fancy or ornamental but thick, creamy cylinders you could hardly get your hand around, soldered to plates and candlesticks by their own wax. He lit all he could find, noting how unevenly they cast light, how one side of Tarrant's hair, for instance, was swallowed in shadow while on the other, light glinted bronze off the curls. "That's lovely," Tarrant said, stretching out. "Really cosy."

"I'd say it was fairly dangerous, naked flames in a wooden building." Avon reached up to light one on the mantelpiece and stumbled over a long leg. "Tarrant, your limbs don't really fit normal-sized rooms."

"Sorry." Tarrant curled up on the rug and grinned at him. The ache came back. He sat down in the rocking-chair and closed his eyes.

"You all right?" Tarrant was kneeling by the chair, looking anxious and very blue-eyed. "You're still worried they'll shop us, aren't you?"

"Yes." He was, though it hadn't been uppermost in his mind. Tarrant began to move the arm of the chair gently, making it rock a little. Rocking-chairs, Avon thought, old men use rocking-chairs. He hadn't thought so when Tarrant was undulating all over it. Tarrant moved round the back, massaging Avon's temples lightly with his fingertips, leaning into the chair so that it still rocked. Avon sighed and let himself go with it.

"Maybe it'll be all right, this time," Tarrant said. "Just because some people betray you - us - it doesn't mean they all will."

Avon laughed briefly. "Expect the worst, then you won't ever be disappointed."

"Do you?"

"I'm getting there."

Tarrant's hands dropped to his shoulders and kneaded them for a moment. Then he said briskly, "I know a cure for this. Where's the rest of that wine?"

"Thought you didn't approve."

"I'd rather have you drunk than depressed." Avon considered making something out of the "have", and let it go. The damn chair was so soothing. Tarrant brought the wine back, in heavy, glistening glasses. "I shouldn't do this," said Avon, and drank, savouring the warm fruit, the slightly metallic, blood-like aftertaste. Tarrant, sitting on the rug beside him, drank too, and made appreciative noises. "That's nice. I like this place."

"That forest?"

"No, I mean the cabin. Be fair, there's some nice stuff."

"Yes." Avon let his eyes sweep the tapestry rugs on the walls, the wooden furniture, the heavy glass pyramid on the table. He reached out and stroked its smooth side. "It could still be a trap. Just a pretty trap." But his voice was more relaxed.

"I like the beach too. I'm going out there to do some yoga, first thing in the morning."

"I shudder at the thought. Just make sure you don't wake me." He leaned back, still stroking the glass - no, that wasn't glass. With a slight shock he realised his hand was resting on Tarrant's hair.

"Like you ever sleep. I've heard you, prowling the base all night." Tarrant didn't seem bothered about the hand so he left it there, his mind swirling, and not just from the wine.

"Well, maybe tonight will be different." He glanced down, warily.

Tarrant grinned and rubbed up against the hand. "Could be." Avon stroked his finger round the inside of a curl. "I like curls," he said, his voice coming out surprised and slightly husky. He sipped the wine, but carefully; there was suddenly a reason not to get drunk and incapable. "Draw the blind," he said, "shut that damn forest out."

Tarrant lounged over and did it. "You don't like it either?"

"I went for a walk in it, earlier. That was enough." He shivered at the memory. It was totally quiet and still; it harboured no birds and nothing else grew there because only dim light filtered through the huge trees. It was trackless; it might go on forever.

"Hey." Tarrant took his hands. "It's all right. Dark's gone away."

"Yes." It certainly seemed to have. His lips opened to say something else, but Tarrant leaned over and kissed them, tongue flickering briefly inside his mouth. Avon's arms went around him and pulled him into the cavernous chair.

It wasn't exactly how he'd thought to spend the evening - talking, drinking, occasionally kissing, with Tarrant cuddled contentedly against him, half in his lap. Especially not the talking. They'd never done much of that, he realised, and it was unexpectedly easy, if a bit disjointed with drink, tiredness and other distractions. At one point he heard himself telling Tarrant how the latticino work on the stem of his wineglass had been crafted, though why Tarrant should have wanted to know, he couldn't imagine. And much later, he was vaguely aware of Tarrant explaining at great length some complex docking manoeuvre. He understood nothing and cared less, but since the young man was punctuating his lecture with some interesting hand signals, Avon lay back and considered a docking manoeuvre of his own. He glanced at the clock.

"It's three in the morning," he said, "maybe we should go to bed."

"Mmm!" Tarrant leapt enthusiastically out of the chair, and keeled over. Smiling uncertainly up from the floor, he slurred, "Can't quite s- seem to walk."

Avon cursed silently. He'd been watching his own alcohol consumption for hours, but it had never occurred to him to watch Tarrant's. He hauled him up, supported him into the bedroom and tried to get him into the lower of the two bunk beds.

"Nah," Tarrant objected indistinctly, "want to go on top." Avon considered a retort, then realised it would be wasted on someone who could go to sleep while trying to climb a ladder. He sighed, disentangled him from the rungs and decanted him into the lower bunk. A long arm hooked round his neck; a sleepy voice murmured "Kiss". Which he did, tasting the wine again, though basically he preferred kissing the conscious. He thought for a moment about climbing into the top bunk, then decided the soft breathing below would be too distracting. He took the quilt, wandered off to the bathroom and climbed into the bath. It was cool in there.

Far too early the next morning, he was woken by Vila's voice over the comlink. "Avon! Avon, you were right. Orac picked up a message. Neutral, hell. The bastards alerted Federation security to you and they're on their way. I reckon you've got an hour or so, provided they don't know you're on to them."

"All right." He went into the bedroom, which was empty. Glancing out of the window, he saw that Tarrant had been serious about the yoga. He was on the beach, looking serene in postures which should have been uncomfortable. He didn't even seem to be hung over. Avon considered his own aching head and the unfair resilience of youth, also the fact that Tarrant was totally naked. He enjoyed that for a moment, then dressed, scooped up the two teleport bracelets and went through to the living room.

He picked up the pile of clothes Tarrant had left by the fire; they were dry now. Then he looked around and half-smiled. The fire was nearly out, but when he stirred the ash a little flame flickered. He arranged some articles in a careful heap in the centre of the room.

Tarrant seemed to be almost in a trance. Avon lay back in the dunes watching him for some time, unobserved, and himself not noticing that the razor-sharp grass was cutting his arms. He realised he wasn't particularly upset by the news of betrayal. In a way it was a relief - now it had happened, he didn't have to worry about if, when and how it would happen. Always expect the worst, then you'll never be disappointed. He smiled mirthlessly: one day it would be second nature.

At last he called, "Tarrant. Look at the cabin."

Tarrant swivelled his eyes, then leapt up in consternation. "Hell! How did that happen?" It was well ablaze.

"I lit it. That breeze off the sea will spread it to the others soon, then they'll know we're on to them. If they get out in time. They sold us; Vila intercepted a message." He tossed Tarrant a bracelet.

Tarrant put it on, and immediately realised that accessories needed something to accessorise. "My clothes! Did you get them?"

Avon paused, then relented and threw him a bundle. "Hurry up." He glanced back at the cabin, sheeted in flame. Somewhere in the acrid tang of the smoke he could smell resin. "Burns well, doesn't it, pine?"


End file.
